About the Author

James Ciment is an editor and the author of several books on
the history of Africa and the Middle East. He lives in Los Angeles
with his wife and two children.

Reviews

"Ciment captures the establishment and destiny of [Liberia],
from [its] expectant beginnings, to the Orwellian zeal with which
the formerly oppressed in many cases became the oppressors, to the
more recent atrocities committed by Charles Taylor. That few
Americans today seem aware of Liberia's story, and their own
country's essential role in it, gives this book a place in the
lexicon that exceeds the mere quality of its research or
readability of its text, both of which are considerable." --The
Daily Beast"Vivid . . . Enlivened by profiles of some of the early
settlers, this is an engaging and accessible account."
--Publishers Weekly"America's ugly affair with slavery produced
an illegitimate child, the nation of Liberia. James Ciment's book
is a stunning portrait of both Americas, the superpower and the
outcast 'child'--a nation we fostered, abused, and used, and that
now thrives despite it all. Ciment brings a journalist's 'you are
there' voice and a novelist's insight to this history of America
reborn in Africa under black rule and misrule. Affecting, at times
violent, and filled with unforgettable characters, AnotherAmerica reads like nonfiction Dostoyevsky." --Greg
Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Vultures'
Picnic"James Ciment has written well about the fantastic, twisted
story of the Republic of Liberia, which saw freed slaves from
America return to Africa to rule over the natives for more than a
century, until they were ousted in a long and brutal civil war.
Another America is an engaging, accessible, appropriately critical
yet respectful history that reads like a novel you won't be able to
put down." --Emily Raboteau, author of Searching for Zion: The
Quest for Home in the African Diaspora"James Ciment's Another
America is a rip-roaring popular retelling of Liberian history. It
is a whirl of names and places that evokes the conundrum presented
by African Americans in Africa claiming to be the spokespersons for
blackness. Its lesson--that class hierarchies can derail appeals to
racial unity--is a vital one." --Ibrahim Sundiata, author of
Brothers and Strangers: Black Zion, Black Slavery, 1914-1940"With a
fistful of good characters and a backbone of research, James
Ciment's very readable book makes the story of Liberia, the
ex-slaves' country, look like a limb of American history." --Edward
Ball, author of Slaves in the Family